Brian Murphy

Brian Murphy (born 1973) discovered Robert E. Howard in the pages of Savage Sword of Conan in the early 1980s, sparking a lifelong love of fantasy. He went on to read widely in fantasy and science fiction before discovering his true passion lay in sword-and-sorcery fiction. Murphy started writing about fantasy on the web in 2007 and was recruited to join a group of bloggers at The Cimmerian, a website dedicated to Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and heroic fantasy. Since then he has been published in numerous print publications and online venues, including The Cimmerian journal, Black Gate, Mythprint, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, The Dark Man, DMR Blog, Skelos, Tales from the Magician's Skull, and SFFaudio.com. Murphy’s essay “The Unnatural City” (from The Cimmerian, Vol. 5 No. 2) was nominated for Outstanding Achievement—Essay at the first annual Robert E. Howard Foundation awards in 2009, as was his “Unmasking ‘The Shadow Kingdom’: Kull and Howard as Outsiders” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #14) in 2011. In 2021 his first book, Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery, won the Atlantean (best book) by the Robert E. Foundation. By day Murphy works for a healthcare publishing company. He enjoys heavy metal music and is an on-again/off-again player of Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. He is married and lives with his wife and two daughters in Massachusetts. To learn more about his interests and writings please visit The Silver Key: http://thesilverkey.blogspot.com/.